SSI - How do I?

[junkdrunk]

Hello everyone;

10 Years building websites and this is the first time I found this site. I could have used you 1000 times since then. Hope someone can assist in this.

I am building a site which i would like to be able to change the look of the site through SSI. However all I can find after 6 hours of looking on the net is how to pull in text to an HTML document.

I am in need of a "how to" of sort as to how I can set SSI to pull in a "LEFT NAV MENU w images" ," TOP NAV w IMAGES", " FOOTER with text only" and a "RIGHT NAV with text and images".

It seems pretty easy when reading. Add a SSI to the doc, make the doc, test if you name it .shtml or .html and all should work fine. I am running Unix with SSI ability.

So here is the question. Can anyone tell me how to setup a standard HTML doc that pulls in TOP BOTTOM LEFT AND RIGHT includes that may contain text and or images:.

Also, am I correct in stating that one must still have a template of some sort to make the "includes" display in the correct places (ie top bottom left right) with retaining the ability to add text or whatever in the middle of all 4 includes,,,,

Phew.... Whomever answers this one is a true master of this.

Sincerely;
JD

[MotherNatrsSon]

I am not a "guru" at this or anything but as far as I know for SSI to work the extension must be shtml.

Here is a link to a pretty thorough tut on SSI for you in the meantime.

http://www.bignosedbird.com/ssi.shtml

Someone will come along and give you a better answer I am sure.

MNS

[neby]

Hey, I have been useing SSI with all of my pages for about 3 yaers now. This is what I use.

all SSI pages (IE: index) Have to have the .shtml extention
index.shtml

When I build a web site, I make a folder for all of my SSI files
I make mine like this...
\ssi\banner.html
\ssi\copyright.html

That way I know what files is for what and I can keep them organized. Once you have that, use this command

<!-- #INCLUDE FILE="ssi/banner.html" -->

That will import the banner.html file to the page.

Now if the page is in a folder like files, you will want to do this so it goes back a directory and finds the file...

<!-- #INCLUDE FILE="../ssi/banner.html" -->

Perty simple stuff once you use it. I know that with ColdFusion and PHP the commands are different, but over all the idea and functions are the same.